Tag Archives: morals

The Loss of Shame

Good or Bad?

As 2009 comes to an end, this has to be one of the most bizarre years for celebrities and sports figures – from Octo Mom, Chris Brown/Rihanna, the Rick Ross/50 Cent fiasco, and the endless ‘leaks’ of personal home videos from celebrities, this year is definitely a defining moment in the ongoing moral decay of society. Combine that with the ever-so popular YouTube videos of youth fights (especially the senseless killing of a Chicago teen), it can be said that we have lost our sense of shame. This point rings louder in the aftermath of the Tiger Woods incident where we have several women ‘proudly’ coming forward in saying that they had sexual relations with the Golf superstar. Let’s analyze the situation so we are all following; up to 16 women are coming forward saying they had relations with a married man … If this was even 50 years ago, these women would have not dared to pronounce such a thing as they would feel ASHAMED and EMBARRASSED. However, some ‘reappropriation’ or ‘reinterpretation’ has happened in the last couple of years because now what used to be ‘shameful’ can be almost worn as a ‘badge of honor’ on one’s sleeve.

So how did we lose the sense of shame? Was it lost with the rise of feminism as women became more vocal about their gender & sexuality? Or was it a reaction to the rise in ‘political correctness’ as a sort of a revolt or detest? I am sure there are a multitude of reasons to our moral decay, and all relates to a loss of pride, honor, and respect for ourselves. I mean, that has to be the only reasons for why women would proudly bolster themselves as hussies, modern day jezebels – we are using our greed for money and fame as an appropriate rational to engage in shameful behavior. Its funny, kind of, we are practicing the ENDS justifies the MEANS, where the ‘ENDS’ refers to money/fame/notoriety and the ‘MEANS’ is whoever or whatever we have to screw (literally and figuratively) over to get it.

This ‘loss of shame’ is everywhere through our society, and I guess it is a reflection to changing norms and attitudes. Some more relatable examples that are seen in everyday life are:

men who mooch off their girlfriends

Not saying that men can be the only ones who are the ‘earners’, but there are many guys out there that are proud that they stay home, play video games all day, and just spend their girlfriend’s money … can anyone say ‘role-reversal’? Lol, just kidding to my independent women.

The Whore Movement

Has always been around, but re-ignited with Paris Hilton, this movement pretty much teaches young females that it is okay to be slack, loose, film yourself – if it leads to money & material wealth. With hip-hop, now we have rappers like Nicki Minaj who have an almost cult-like following of young women who follow her on Twitter, dress like her, and talks like her (go to her MySpace to get familiar).

The most blatant example of our ‘Loss of Shame’ can be seen daily, hourly, on Twitter – sometimes I am disgusted of the trending topics and some of the comments/posts that people share. It really is a sea of madness and nonsense – but in the same breath, is this a product of our individualistic society where we are encouraged to say what is on our minds?

The ‘Good’ in the “Loss of Shame”?

From childhood, we are taught that we are ‘special’, we are ‘unique’, ‘no one is like you’, and to ‘speak our mind’, so is this merely the cost of our individuality – the loss of morals? It is an interesting trade-off that we seem to be battling with at the moment as it is a continuous cycle of conflicting views that go sort of like: If I am vocal of something that is perceived as morally incorrect, if I DON’T talk about it I am repressing my feelings & emotions – which goes against everything that society teaches me …. And if I DO be vocal about something that is morally incorrect, then I am expressing myself, even though I know it is wrong – so why am I expressing it in the first place.

Just thinking about this gives me a headache, as morality, ethics, freedom, and psychology interplay in this sticky quagmire of a situation.

Action & Social Consequence

The Social Sheriff is still relevant, crucifying those that act out of line

Every action has a reaction, this guy thought he could kick a little kid – with no consequence; well, he got a ‘face-full’ of consequence … I mean, at least try to block the hit.

Now after you are done laughing, I have to say that this quite refreshing as Social Justice as reared its vengeful head on this supposedly ‘mature adult’ with the glasses. Yes, the boxer who boxed out the lame, in the eyes of the law, will probably be charged with some sort of assault. However socially speaking, the man that had the nerve and audacity to kick a little child should be charged with some sort of offense for even thinking of the thought that he could do such a thing and get away with it. Now, we don’t have audio in this clip, so we don’t know if there was any provocation or what verbal events lead up to the man doing such a thing – not that anything would explain his actions, but it would give insight into why he ‘did what he did’. And ‘what he did’, got him a swift box.

Many other people should take on the ‘Social Sheriff’ role and ‘check’ people that get out of line, like:

Kanye West

Somebody should have gone up on stage, or just as Kanye was leaving the stage, and give him a swift box

Paparazzi

They invade celebrities privacy, cause disturbances, and remind me of cockroaches when the lights go on – some celebrity needs to get out the ‘RAID’.

Those that watched

This era of ‘Instant Social Media Popularity’ has desensitizied the youth; as many youth in Chicago watched, laughed, and even filmed a brethren, a human being, get killed. Then such individual(s) thought it would be cool to share it on YouTube. In this instance, I’m pretty sure you can figure out what the Social Justice would be ….

Wrapping it up and going back to the beginning of this rant, let’s be thankful that guys like the overhand throwing man in the animated gif at the top still exist to protect those that can’t protect themselves, and who stand for something.

I’m sure that you have heard it all before; it something that we used to do habitually as a kid. You know, “I took Tommy’s toy because he was mean to me“, and so on. We did it then because there was a sense of justification – somebody did me wrong, so it must only be natural to return the favor, right? Well, our teachers and parents sharply criticized for such behavior, I know I’ve heard it before “Two wrongs don’t make a right”, “you should know better than that”, “don’t stoop to their level”, and so on. But as we grow and evolve into the person we are destined to be, naturally it would be wise to think that we abandon such behavior, but I think it only gets worse and complex – complex in the sense that we will justify our ‘wrongs’ based on the situation, and will try to justify our ‘wrong’ actions as a measured response to something completely unrelated.

For example, my good friend borrowed my classic Nintendo system a couple of years ago and never gave it back, and claims that his nephew has it – which I know is false. My measured response to this is that sometimes he will ask for a ride to go somewhere, I will agree, but I will show up late on purpose … I don’t know why I do this, but I get some sort of satisfaction out of it, even though I know it is wrong. Or, I’m sure that we have all done this at some point, a boss has pissed us off, thus we take solace in taking office supplies or other company items – of course, I have never done this ….. shame on y’all that have!

Its all good when you are the culprit or the person being ‘wrong’, but when someone is ‘wronging’ (is that a word?) you, and when they get caught red-handed, it is interesting how deflections start coming up like a blocked shot. For instance, my girl was very rude and feisty in a telephone exchange, when confronted later on about the situation, she knew that she was wrong, but attempted to justify her actions as a response to how I was rude to her, in the past though. I laughed, chuckled, and realized that our playground mentality will always be with us, its really a part of who we are – the only thing that will change, if anything, is that we will find more eloquent ways to justify our behaviors, and provide more psychological/social context to a simple principle:

“Nah nah boo boo, I’m going to get you!”

(to get the pronunciation, say it like you would have said it when you were 7), lol.